Another gesture from the Religion of Peace.
Authorities on three continents thwarted multiple terrorist attacks aimed at the United States from Yemen on Friday, seizing two explosive packages addressed to Chicago-area synagogues and packed aboard cargo jets. The plot triggered worldwide fears that al-Qaida was launching a major new terror campaign.
……U.S. officials said they were increasingly confident that al-Qaida’s Yemen branch, the group responsible for the failed Detroit airliner bombing last Christmas, was responsible.
Parts of the plot might remain undetected, Obama’s counterterror chief warned. “The United States is not assuming that the attacks were disrupted and is remaining vigilant,” John Brennan said at the White House.
One of the packages was found aboard a cargo plane in Dubai, the other in England. Preliminary tests indicated the packages contained the powerful industrial explosive PETN, the same chemical used in the Christmas attack, U.S. officials said. The tests had not been confirmed.
In the U.S., cargo planes were searched up and down the Eastern Seaboard, and an Emirates Airlines passenger jet was escorted down the coast to New York by American fighter jets.
No explosives were found aboard those planes, though the investigation was continuing on at least two.
……Authorities in Dubai intercepted one explosive device. The second package was aboard a plane searched in East Midlands, north of London, and officials said it contained a printer toner cartridge with wires and powder. Brennan said the devices were in packages about the size of a breadbox.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101029/ap_on_bi_ge/airports_suspicious_packages
Brennan was the same assclown who insisted that critics of Obama’s Dhimmi-laden counter terrorism were al Qaeda hacks. We don’t particularly like the politically correct removal of “Islamic terrorism” from the national security assessment, especially when the description is accurate, or his close affiliation with known terrorists.
In an oped in USA Today, John Brennan — Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Advisor for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism — responds to critics of the Obama administration’s counterterrorism policies by saying “Politically motivated criticism and unfounded fear-mongering only serve the goals of al-Qaeda.”
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2010/02/wh-some-critics-serving-the-goals-of-al-qaeda.html
Since February of 2010, when he made that stupid fucking comment, there have been numerous uncovered plots, threats, and at least one major attack.
A report conducted by former 9/11 Commission members titled “Assessing the Terrorist Threat,” summarizes what has happened in just the last year:
Qaeda-affiliated groups have tried to blow up a U.S. airliner, replicate the London and Madrid commuter bombings in the New York subway system, detonate a vehicle bomb in Times Square and carry out numerous other attacks inside our borders. “Last year was a watershed in terrorist attacks and plots in the United States, with a record total of 11 jihadist attacks, jihadist-inspired plots, or efforts by Americans to travel overseas to obtain terrorist training,” the report says. “They included two actual attacks [at Fort Hood, Texas, which claimed the lives of 13 people, and the shooting of two U.S. military recruiters in Little Rock, Ark.], five serious but disrupted plots, and four incidents involving groups of Americans conspiring to travel abroad to receive terrorist training. … This level of threat is likely to persist for years to come.”
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/sep/14/the-terrorist-next-door/
Gee, I wonder if Brennan still thinks we “serve” Al Qaeda for calling evil what it is.
The two package bombs intercepted by authorities in Britain and Dubai last week appear to have been built to detonate “in flight” and to bring down the planes carrying them, Obama’s top counterterrorism adviser said.
……The assessment, combined with the revelation that one of the packages traveled on passenger flights in the Middle East, underlined just how narrowly authorities had averted a potential catastrophe. It also raised puzzling questions about why the packages, which contained bombs skillfully packed inside modified printer cartridges, were addressed to two synagogues in Chicago, a potential warning flag given that the packages originated in Yemen.
……A U.S. counterterrorism official said that forensics work is still in its early stages on the packages and that FBI experts are involved. The preliminary conclusion that the devices were designed to detonate aboard aircraft, and not at the addresses in the Chicago area, is based in part on the fact that the parcels were not rigged to explode upon opening.
The devices employed cellphone technology, but it remains unclear why they were built that way. Among the questions authorities are asking: How and when, during a transatlantic passage, would the cellphone components have been in range to receive a signal?
“There are a whole lot of theories being kicked around about whether [they were set] on a timer, whether somebody was going to call, or another triggering mechanism would set them off,” the counterterrorism official said.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/31/AR2010103105001.html
In other words, we were lucky.